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Qantas tumbles down rankings of Australia’s best brands as Bunnings maintains…

Qantas has tumbled to 41st place in an analysis of the strength of Australian brands, due to “reputational issues that generated negative media coverage”, a far cry from when the airline was considered the country’s strongest brand by the same report in 2019. A Brand Finance report released on Wednesday ranked what it said were Australia’s 100 most valuable and strongest brands in 2024. Bunnings was found to be the strongest brand for a third consecutive year, while Woolworths was the most valuable brand despite a 5% decline in brand value. The total value of those 100 brands increased by 2.5% to $199bn. Sixty brands saw an…

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 at highest level in 34 years

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were trading mostly lower Wednesday after a decline overnight on Wall Street, while Tokyo’s main benchmark momentarily hit another 30-year high. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIY00, -0.59% gained 0.9% in morning trading to 35,935.59. The Nikkei has been hitting new 34-year highs, or the best since February 1990 during the so-called financial bubble. Buying focused on semiconductor-related shares, and a cheap yen helped boost exporter issues. Don’t miss: Wall Street firms catch up to Buffett enthusiasm on Japan as Nikkei keeps hitting records Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 AU:ASX10000 slipped 0.2% to 7,401.30…

Uranium prices drive Toro to update Lake Maitland scoping study

Torro Energy has moved quickly to take advantage of the recent price spike in global uranium prices announcing plans to freshen up a previously released scoping study over its Lake Maitland project eyeing off the possibilities of what the current 16-year high price above US$100 a pound could mean for the prospects of its uranium project near Wiluna in WA. The previous scoping study over Lake Maitland, released in October 2022 used a uranium oxide price estimate of US$70 (AU$106) per pound, which even at those levels resulted in some world leading financial metrics. Today, with the commodity price having soared by more than 40 per…

Investors encouraged to consider the ‘unthinkable’: no Fed rate cuts in 2024

One major Wall Street bank is weighing in on what it calls “an extreme scenario” in which no Group of 10 central bank cuts interest rates this year due to sticky inflation, strong economic growth or fresh shocks that push price gains higher. In a note on Tuesday, Athanasios Vamvakidis, a U.K.-based FX strategist at Bank of America BAC, -2.07% , said it’s worth considering the implication of a seemingly “unrealistic” scenario in which major central banks stay on hold. For now, markets are pricing in about six interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, starting, respectively, in March and April; five…

China's economy expanded 5.2% last year, hitting target of 'about 5%' even…

China’s economy for the October-December quarter grew at a quicker rate, allowing the Chinese government to hit its target of about 5% annual growth for 2023 even though trade data and the economic recovery remain uneven. Official data released Wednesday showed that the Chinese economy grew 5.2% for 2023, surpassing the target of ‘about 5%’ that the government had set. The growth for 2023 is likely helped by 2022’s GDP of just 3% as ’s economy slowed due to COVID-19 and nationwide lockdowns during the pandemic. For the fourth quarter, China’s gross domestic product also grew at 5.2% compared to the same time last year. On a…